• 5.10.0 (64 bit)
• 5.10.0 (32 bit)
• 5.8.9 (32 bit)

The default Perl is 5.10.0 (64 bit). However you can change this to 32-bit Perl by setting the following ENV shell variable:

export VERSIONER_PERL_PREFER_32_BIT=yes

And to switch to 5.8.9 all you need is this ENV variable set:

export VERSIONER_PERL_VERSION=5.8.9

Instead of setting these ENV variables in your Terminal sessions you can also make the change to the systems defaults:

• defaults write com.apple.versioner.perl Prefer-32-Bit -bool yes
• defaults write com.apple.versioner.perl Version 5.8.9

This is a interesting move by Apple and something which may come in very handy in the future.

As it stands at this moment though you probably want 5.10.1 (and beyond) because of issues with 5.10.0. So you will probably be looking down the compiling route anyway. Still it does give the future option of a local::lib possibility with the pre-installed Perl provided by Apple.

NB. I always recommend that you avoid installing modules with CPAN (shell) on OS provided Perl. Always stick to the OS provided package installer to update Perl & modules (which unfortunately for Mac’s means “zilch” Apple “Software Updater” may update Perl itself but no extra modules are provided above what Apple provides on top of core Perl)

/I3az/

References:

• README.macosx – Perl under Mac OS X
• Mac-Carbon Modules and Mac OS X 10.6
• Snow Leopard Compatibility Tweaks for That Thing I Wrote in January About Writing AppleScripts That Dynamically Target Either Safari or WebKit
• How can I find out which Perl version was available on older Mac OS X versions?